


joy (set my mind free)

by ohallows



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: (referenced - saira is actually a good person), Ableism, Bonding, Canon Compliant, Gen, Magic, resistance leader saira
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:21:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24546064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohallows/pseuds/ohallows
Summary: Saira works on paperwork, Eddie writes a letter, and then they have a conversation.
Comments: 17
Kudos: 37





	joy (set my mind free)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [abbeghoul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abbeghoul/gifts).



> hi my names bri and i don’t like tjelvar bc hes nearly as mean to eddie as bertie is. tjelvar and bertie deserve each other (also i think eddie and saira would be really good friends and she would treat him kindly)
> 
> also i had feelings abt the tahans is that obvious.
> 
> working title: tjelvar sucks the fic

The sun streams in through the open window, and the curtains blow gently in the breeze. Saira grumbles, annoyed, because she  _ knows  _ she has to get up but getting up means facing the mountain of paperwork that she has sitting on her desk, and today she  _ kind of  _ just wants to relax. 

At least her head feels better. She’s had a migraine nearly all week from the stress of it all, but they’ve had some good news on the war front recently, more information about the infected that they’ll be able to use to their advantage. Finally hearing from Hamid helped as well - she knows it wasn’t safe, and Ishaq said that Hamid wasn’t really able to say a proper goodbye before having to hang up. She hopes he didn’t get in  _ too _ much trouble for calling them; it’s been a relief, knowing he’s okay. Ishaq had come back from Cairo yelling about zombies and Rome and magic, and their mother had nearly had a conniption when she’d realised Hamid wouldn’t be coming back with him ( _ or _ anytime soon). It had been hard enough not knowing which prison their brother and father had been moved to, or when they would see them again. They’ve been reassured that they’re okay, that everything has been locked down, but… the stress has been starting to get to Saira. As much as she doesn’t show it. 

She sighs, and kicks her legs over the side of the bed, running a hand down her face. Another day. She has some more resistance paperwork to do; Curie has called in another rescue mission, and Saira needs to transfer it over to Amelia and her crew so that she can get on her way. They don’t really have time for rest, anymore, not if they want to have any chance of beating this thing. 

It’s also been a bit hard, helping to manage the resistance from the country house. She’s doing what she  _ can,  _ of course, but Cairo has more or less set itself up as the central command for the entire fight, and as much as the stones have helped all of them communicate quickly, Saira still thinks she’d be able to help more if she were actually  _ there. _

Plus, it’s still  _ their  _ house. But there’s no space there anymore, according to Curie, so Saira wouldn’t even be able to stay there if she wanted. It’s fine. She  _ hates  _ it, but it’s fine. Everyone has their role to play in the resistance. Hamid has his, and Saira has hers, and she’ll do everything she can to help from what feels like the sidelines, even if they’re  _ not.  _ Not really, at least. 

She exits her room, finally finished getting ready, and heads to the kitchen. No one else is awake yet - the twins usually sleep in late, their mother doesn’t get out of her room much anymore unless she’s going to sit in the gardens, and Ed likes a bit of a lie-in as well. The house is nearly silent; no running feet, no sounds of magic, no singing. Saira wraps her arms around herself and tries not to feel all alone. 

It used to be a lively house. They’d all come down to the coast for the summer, sometimes. Even their father would get away from work, take a weekend off (or, if they were lucky, a  _ whole  _ week). Their mother and Aziza would be singing in the drawing room, the music echoing all around the house. Saleh would be out in the yard practicing, while their father critiqued and applauded in good measure. Hamid and Saira would be responsible for keeping the twins busy, which usually led to some sort of minor (or major) accident. They were all...  _ happy _ . 

It’s quiet now, though. No music in the halls, anymore. Just half of a family and a war against something they have no idea how to fight.

Saira sighs. Maudlin thoughts like  _ that  _ aren’t going to help her deal with all of this, so with a forced spring in her step and a healthy dose of determination, she grabs some leftover ta’ameya, and decides to sequester herself away in the office for the day. Being melancholic isn’t going to further the war effort, and she’s got a pile of work to get through in order to get the next mission in good standing and sent off. 

The pile of work on her desk is no less daunting than she remembers it being, but she is  _ ready  _ and she’s going to get it all out of the way today so that she can be ready for whatever new mess she’ll need to address tomorrow. She sits down, takes a bite, and gets to work, pen scritching along the paper as the sun slowly continues to rise outside. 

She’s actually gotten through a respectable chunk with minimal distractions when she hears a noise outside. One of the twins must be up, or maybe Ed, judging by how heavy the footfalls are. 

It’s not long before there’s a crash in the hallway, and Saira looks up, nearly mucking up her signature on the documents authorising use of the Tahan family funds for Amelia’s mission. Gods, but she hopes it wasn’t their mother’s favorite vase. She doesn’t want to have to deal with the yelling that will definitely follow. She waits as she hears the telltale signs of hurried fixing, and then nothing else falls, so she assumes it’s alright. 

Ed appears in the doorway, a bit of dust on his cheek and his hair all mussed up. 

“Sorry!” he apologises, stepping in the room as he wipes away the dust on his cheek. “I didn’t - knocked into the wall, wasn’t watching my feet. Nothing happened! I swear it. Picture’s all good, just a bit wonky on the wall now.” 

“Oh, good morning, Ed. And don’t worry about it,” Saira says, waving a hand. She never much liked any pictures in the hallway either, so this may just be an unlooked-for blessing in disguise. “Would you like some tea?”

“Oh, d’you have some?” Eddie asks, and Saira nods, gesturing over to a small kettle in the corner of the room. It’s magical, charmed to always keep the water warm, and a heirloom from centuries back in their family. “That’d be wicked, cheers.”

She stands, because her mother taught her from a young age how to be a proper host, and pours Eddie a cup - they have different-sized mugs here for this exact purpose, and Eddie gives her a big grin when she hands it over to him.

“What brings you down here this early?” Saira asks, and Ed rocks back on his heels for a moment, taking a sip of the tea. 

“Do you have some paper I could borrow?” he asks, and Saira nods. She starts shuffling through the top drawer of the desk; she always keeps a spare human-sized pad of paper around just in case, a lesson she’d learned from working at the Apophis Office, which… it’s slightly baffling to think that she never really  _ did  _ get away from the family business, in the end. Still, those are thoughts for a much less sober version of herself, and Eddie still needs that paper. 

“Will this work?” she asks, pulling out a notepad and a pen, and Ed perks up, smile spreading across his face. 

“Yeah, that’s well good!” he says, and takes them from her, looking excited. 

“What do you need it for?” she asks, and Ed brightens up. 

“Were thinking about writing a letter! I - I know the post is a little weird, now, what with the whole apocalypse going on outside, but it’d be nice to hear from my friends - or, well, friend, I guess. Dunno about Friedrech, he never much liked dealing with me in the first place.” Saira’s heart clenches at that, and then again when Ed’s near-permanent smile slips for a moment. But it’s not long before it’s back, and it’s like it never left. 

“I think that’s very sweet of you, Eddie,” she says, and she can see some of the tightness leave the space around his eyes. “Do you want to sit at the other desk?” 

Ed whirls around. “Oh, wicked!” he says. “I didn’t even see that there.”

“Well, you’re welcome to work in here with me,” she invites, and Ed beams at her before heading over to it, nearly knocking one of the inkwells on the desk over as he sits at it. The desk was  _ technically  _ not built for halflings, but it’s still smaller than a normal desk, so Eddie kind of looks like he’s sitting at a desk for children. He doesn’t seem bothered by it, though, and starts happily writing while Saira smiles fondly at his back. 

They work together without speaking for a while, but Eddie starts humming, a happy tune that Saira finds she can’t stop smiling faintly at. It’s a nice backdrop of sound for her, giving her the ability to focus solely on the forms instead of every creak and groan the country house makes. Ed keeps writing, for longer than she’d expected him to, and although he doesn’t write quickly, the letter starts to slowly get longer and longer. 

“Who are you writing a letter to?” she eventually asks, needing a break from the mountain of paperwork that she’s slowly been turning into nothing more than a small hill.

“My mate Tjelvar, he was well cool, he’s an archaeologist at a  _ proper _ university. We met on a quest before things got all… wibbly,” Ed explains, wiggling his fingers in the general direction of the world outside. “I like to write him, sometimes. Did a bit before I had to take my pilgrimage for Apollo, just telling him about my day, about smiting evil… he seemed proper interested in that, on the quest.” 

“Oh, that’s lovely,” Saira says, smiling. “So you two would exchange letters, then?”

Eddie’s smile dims only a bit at the question. “I mean, he never responded, after, but I know he’s busy. I think he still reads them, even if he doesn’t have time to write one back. He’s a researcher and all, he’s got loads on.” 

Saira feels her smile freeze on her face, but Ed still isn’t completely looking at her, focusing on the paper in front of him. “He didn’t?” 

“No, he’s well busy. I think he likes reading mine, though. Hope he does! He was kind of grumpy last we spoke, and didn’t want me to go with him, but that’s okay. The quest was a lot of work, I get it.”

“What do you mean?” Saira asks, brow knitting together, and Ed waves his hand around like all of this is just… standard behaviour. And maybe, to  _ him _ , it is, but that just makes Saira feel even worse for him. 

“I mean, he called me irritating and told me to stuff it sometimes and he got mad at me a lot, but I don’t think he meant it. He was just annoyed. It was well cold out there.”

“Wait, wait -“ Saira says, holding a hand up. Ed stops, looking at her confusedly. “He called you what?”

“Oh, he was just like that,” Ed says, shrugging it off, and Saira finds herself a bit lost for words. 

“Ed, I don’t think that’s an excuse?” Saira says, trying to be as gentle with it as possible, but Eddie 

“He didn’t mean it, honest!” Ed says. “And he was well nice, sometimes.”

“Was he?” Saira asks as demurely as she can, trying her best to not immediately start denouncing this… Tjelvar. Maybe he  _ was  _ nice, and Eddie was right and he just  _ was  _ busy a lot. She could forgive him that. 

“Oh! He said I was a good healer,” Ed says, brightly. “Didn’t want me getting hurt because then there'd be no one else around to heal him and Sir Bertrand.” 

“Did he… compliment you for anything else?” Saira asks, any sort of chance of being forgiving toward Tjelvar evaporating, and Eddie falls silent, brow pulling together as he’s clearly thinking.

“I don’t - I mean, I think he must’ve? S’been a long time. But he really liked my healing!” Ed says, and Saira… doesn’t really know what to do. 

It’s just like Hamid, was, when she’d gone to visit him at secondary school, and all he could do was gush about his new friend Gideon, and how funny and amazing he was. Saira had pegged Gideon for the troublemaker he was, even if Hamid hadn’t realised until too late. This - this reminds her of that. And she doesn’t want the same thing that happened to Hamid happen to Eddie, either. 

“Ed - he doesn’t much sound like your friend, if I’m being honest,” Saira says, frowning slightly as she looks over at him. And, gods, her heart just sinks when Eddie looks downcast. Oh, if Saira ever meets this Tjelvar, she’s going to - to - well, he better  _ hope _ it never happens, because she will be the  _ opposite  _ of kind. 

“No, he’s - he  _ is  _ my friend, honest,” Ed says, although it almost feels like he’s trying to convince himself more than Saira. 

“Friends don’t tell each other to shut up all the time,” she says gently, and Eddie’s brow furrows. “Or call each other irritating.”

Ed’s silent for a moment, and his pen has stalled on the paper, where Saira can just see that he’s signed his name. He has lovely handwriting, better than she’d expect. And he’d written  _ a lot _ , too. She - she wishes this Tjelvar  _ was  _ Ed’s friend, that he actually deserved to have this much of Eddie’s time. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, apologising. “I didn’t mean to make you feel badly.”

Ed waves this off, too, and Saira wonders how often he’s waved off apologies or comments, pretending like they didn’t affect him as badly as they do.

“I still want to know if he’s okay, though,” Ed says quietly, staring down at his thumbs, and Saira bites her lip. 

“I’m sorry, Ed,” she says, in lieu of anything else to say, and he shrugs his shoulders.

“S’alright,” he says, more muted than Saira ever thinks she’s seen him, even after everything in Rome, and her heart feels like it’s breaking again. She opens her mouth to say something, maybe to apologise again, or maybe just to find  _ something  _ to comfort Eddie with, when they both hear voices slowly getting louder as twin pairs of feet pound against the floor as they get closer to the office.

“It’s  _ my  _ turn, Ishaq!” They both hear Ismail shouting from outside, sounding put out. “Oi! Not  _ fair _ !” 

Ishaq laughs as he turns the corner into the office, and Saira dives for her papers as a rush of wind enters with him. She manages to grab most of them, but enough goes cascading to the ground that she’s going to have her work sort out for her if she wants to rearrange them. 

She regrets the day they learned they had magic. And they hadn’t had time to get the boys a proper tutor before the first wave of the outbreak, so they’ve mostly been running amok with it, to the detriment of everyone staying in the house. Ed had done some teaching - he was surprisingly patient with the twins, and had been able to get them somewhat in line, but there’s only so much you  _ can  _ do to corral teenagers. Teenagers who are still running in a  _ circle  _ around her desk, and messing up her perfectly stacked documents.

“Boys!” she finally yells, and Ishaq and Ismail come to a screeching halt. It works on them as well as it used to work on Hamid, thank the  _ gods, _ but she still has an entire mess of paperwork to clean up. “What did we say about responsibly using your magic?” 

“Oh, sorry,” Ishaq says, looking genuinely abashed. 

Ismail nods, frantically. “Sorry, Saira.”

She sighs. It’s still… weird, really, to see them next to each other, with Ismail being taller. Reminds her of…  _ everything. _

“It’s fine,” she says, rubbing her temples with her fingers. “Just… go outside. Please.”

“Okay!” Ismail says, always acting the part of the more mature twin, and Saira gives him an approving nod. 

“Hey, golden boy!” Ishaq says, and then bounds around Ed, tapping him on the head as he goes. Ismail stays behind, grumbling with his arms crossed, but eventually makes his way over to Ed, curiously peering over his shoulder. “Whatcha doing?” 

“Got done writing a letter to a f - someone,” Ed amends, and neither of the twins notice his shoulders tense for a moment before relaxing again, but Saira does. She wishes there was  _ anything  _ else she could do. 

“Oh, writing is so  _ boring,”  _ Ismail whines, and then looks around furtively, as though someone’s going to tell him off for acting the part of a teenager. “I mean - it’s -“

Ishaq either doesn’t notice his stammering or doesn’t care, leaning on Eddie’s back as he flicks a flame on and off with his finger pointed straight up. “You wanna come play in the gardens with us?” 

Eddie folds up the paper and stands, ruffling both of the twin’s hair. “Oh, yeah, we never finished our game yesterday!” 

“You two go ahead. I have to ask Eddie something,” Saira says, smoothly stepping in. “I won’t even make you clean up the office.”

Ishaq and Ismail look thrilled and run out of the office, whispering something about grown-ups being weird that Saira decides to ignore. 

“Eddie,” Saira says, and pats him on the shoulder. “If anyone here talks to you like that - like Tjelvar did - calling you stupid, or irritating - will you tell me?”

His brows knit together. “I don’t want anyone to get in trouble or nothing,” he says, sounding a bit hesitant. 

Saira shakes her head. “They won’t, I promise. I just don’t want them speaking this way to you. You deserve better than that, Eddie. You’re a lovely person, and you deserve to have friends who treat you with respect and want you around.”

Eddie doesn’t say anything to that, and almost looks… confused? Like the idea hadn’t occurred to him.

“You don’t mind if I’m here?” Ed asks, and Saira just wants to pull him into a hug and keep him there, wants to find everyone who made him feel this unwelcome and give them a piece of her mind. 

“You can stay here for as long as you want, Ed,” Saira says, and she doesn’t care what her mother has to say about it, or what her father will think when he comes home. “We’re happy to have you here.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Ed says, and his smile is just as big as it ever is. “ _ Well _ good.”

“That’s all I wanted to say. Have fun with the twins, and keep them out of trouble if you can,” Saira says, and then gestures to the letter. “I promise I’ll try to get this sent for you.” 

Eddie gives her a grateful look; Saira doesn’t think Tjelvar deserves even a  _ second  _ of this man’s time, if he ever did, but she’s going to respect Eddie’s wishes and do what she can. It’s doubtful that the letter will ever make it there, what with the state the world is in now, but she made a promise and she’s going to keep it. 

He leaves, nearly crashing through the door as he runs down the hallway, chasing after the twins.

She stares at the mess that’s been left behind in her office and sighs, hands on her hips. This is all going to need to be reorganised; hopefully, it won’t take long. She can hear the twins laughing outside, and after a moment, she can hear Ed laughing too. With a smile, hoping that maybe she’s helped him a little bit, she gets back to cleaning.

There’s lots to do, after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> reread through the sidequest for this and wow i want to throttle bertie again for the comments he made.


End file.
